Book 9: Chapter 13:

With the town having officially been named Nameless, everybody celebrated and had a good time with one another. There was dancing, some music, a variety of food—mostly different fish cooked in different ways—and overall a good time to be had.

However, the next day, it was time for Fenrir to get to work. Before he could focus more on the submarine project, though, he had to get his new spy into action. That was why he went to the cell that Lazarus was still being held at to get in some final words with his new agent before sending him on his way. “Alright, Lazzy boy, let’s get started.”

Lazarus was only around Fenrir for less than a minute and he was already groaning. “Can you… please… just call me Lazarus? Or Laz? Anything but… ‘Lazzy boy.’”

What do you think, Saya? Do I call him Lazzy-chan?

“Technically, you’re asking me for advice on an in-game matter while talking to me as your virtual assistant, so I’m not allowed to give input,” Saya answered.

Come on.

“I’m still your virtual assistant which means I’m not allowed to assist you, as a virtual assistant, in any way. That includes dealing with other players.”

You’re so professional sounding all of a sudden.

“I still believe in doing my job properly, thank you very much.”

Fenrir sighed and gave up. “Alright, Laz. I’ll stick with that. Good?”

“Good. Thanks.”

“Good.”

“I’m not going to keep going back and forth saying ‘good.’”

Another sigh already left Fenrir’s lips. “You’re too serious. You’ve got to lighten up. Get fun and silly.”

“Why?”

“Because you want to grief and troll our former group, right? They’re all the edgy and serious types. Do you know what’s going to happen if you go and be your usual, brooding self? If they find out you’re a spy or whatever? It’s not going to bother them that much. It’d be too basic. How do I put this better… alright. So, we have a super edgy group. Somebody joins that group by being super edgy and then betrays them. The betrayer is still super edgy and brooding even after the fact. He always fit in and still fits in even after betraying them. The group he betrayed is going to think he’s an asshole and want to kill him on sight but that’s about it. Following me?”

“Yeah, makes sense.”

“Right. You would just think somebody like that is an asshole traitor, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not repeating ‘yeah’ over and over, either.”

And so the third sigh left Fenrir’s lips. “Moving on. Now, we’re going to replace that brooding edgy traitor with somebody who is actually super silly and outgoing. Of course, they pretend to be brooding and edgy and all that to fit in until the climax. But then, when it’s finally revealed that they’re a traitor… that’s when they bomb the place with rainbow glitter while singing along to some old children’s cartoon’s opening song. You make them feel like complete idiots for falling for your act, you piss them off and make them think you’re the most annoying little fuck in the entire world, and you completely ruin the atmosphere by acting in the exact opposite way of what they want. Still following?”

“I get it.”

“Of course, the opposite is also true. Acting all super friendly and outgoing in a group of friendly and outgoing people, then you reveal you’ve been an edgy murderhobo the entire time and slaughter everybody before planting their heads on spikes. The extreme contrast here is what’s important and what really gets under your enemy’s skin. That’s how you be annoying and not just an asshole. And being annoying is the purest form of trolling.”

“What do you mean it’s the purest?”

“Think about it. Trolling exists because we like to get reactions out of people. Usually negative reactions. Of course, ever since the twenties, people took ‘trolling’ to mean something way more serious. What with ‘internet trolls’ being all over the news as disinformation propagandists trying to argue with people in bad faith to bring more people over to their side and all that boring stuff, but that’s not real trolling. That was just modern propaganda and disinfo ops that stole the name of trolling. True trolling is done to get a reaction out of people.”

“Hold on. Isn’t that still how the disinfo stuff works? Like, let’s say there are some neutral guys who don’t know whether the sky is blue or green… for whatever reason since they can’t tell that it’s obviously blue. You say it’s blue, I argue that it’s green, and I use logic that pisses you off and gets that anger and annoyance out of you which makes you look irrational and emotional, and then those neutral parties take my side because of your reaction. Isn’t that still basically trolling to get a reaction?”

“I—well. Alright. I’ll give you that one. The only way for me to really define trolling here is to gatekeep it. So, as one of the most infamous troll leaders to ever exist in gaming, allow me to gatekeep the absolute heck out of trolling. Ultimately, with your example, trolling is being done for a greater cause. You’re not doing it just to get their reaction, you’re doing it to use their reaction. You have the ill intent of manipulating their reaction to fuel your cause. That might technically be trolling, but it’s not really trolling. You know, it’s like the brownie versus cake debate.”

“That’s a debate?”

“Do you think brownies are cakes?”

“Of course not. A brownie’s a brownie. Anybody who thinks otherwise has never had a brownie.”

“Oh, let me tell you, there’s a huge debate about that if you look in the right places. Technically, brownies are cakes, but nobody who has ever eaten a brownie and is arguing in good faith would actually call a brownie a cake. If they do call a brownie a cake, they’re barbarians who might as well say that apples and oranges are the same thing. Now, what about ice cream cakes? Are ice cream cakes actually cakes?”

“Yeah.”

“But technically, they’re not cakes. Even so, they fit the spirit of being a cake. What I’m trying to say here is that… actually, I got way too distracted by food analogies. Back to the brownie thing since the cake one isn’t actually relevant. Brownies are technically cakes, but they don’t fit the spirit of being a cake. Trolling for a greater cause is technically trolling, but it doesn’t fit the spirit of being a troll. A true, honest, genuine troll trolls because they can. They don’t troll for some greater reason or to push an agenda or anything like that. They troll because it’s fun. The fun is in getting a reaction out of a person that they wouldn’t have had without your trolling. To make somebody react to you is the ultimate goal of trolling. Therefore, the bigger the reaction, the better you’re doing. Being called an asshole? That’s barely a reaction. Annoying somebody so hard that they ragequit? That’s better. Completely subverting somebody’s plans and ruining all of their hard work while mocking them to their face by acting in the exact opposite manner that they conduct themselves in? Now—now we’re getting into what it’s like to really troll.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Getting inspired by hearing all of that is making me realize how horrible of a person I am.”

“Don’t worry, I know the feeling. Embrace it. My logic is that it’s alright to be a horrible person as long as we aim our horribleness at the right people. If you’re horrible to horrible people, then it cancels out and makes you a good person.”

“That’s some mental gymnastics right there.”

“If gymnastics weren’t legitimate then gymnasts wouldn’t win medals.”

Lazarus stared Fenrir head on for a few moments as the gears turned in his head to understand that. “I feel like I should counter that, but I liked it too much. Alright. You’ve got me. What’s next?”

As for Fenrir, he couldn’t help but to feel smug as he crossed his arms over his chest and held his head up high. This takes me back to the old days of training new recruits, he thought. “Alright. Now we know what the truth of trolling is: getting the biggest reaction possible from somebody—not for the sake of any greater reason—but because we want to. Because it’s funny. It makes us feel warm and fuzzy on the inside with a side of realizing we’re terrible people that society would be better off without. Now, our target is a group of murderhobo edgelords. Am I wrong?”

“Nope.”

“So, what’s the opposite of being a murderhobo edgelord?”

“A carebear who likes romcoms?”

“I would have settled for just ‘carebear’ but the ‘likes romcoms’ part was a nice addition to that. Now, because you’re going to be spying for us, that means you can’t just give away your act and go full romcom-loving carebear.”

“I don’t really think I have that in me anyways.”

“But you could always act like you do, couldn’t you?”

“I don’t know. I can’t imagine myself singing and dancing around the place acting all happy.”

“Alright, maybe you don’t have to do that, but you could still try doing some subtle things here and there.”

“Like what?”

“Use the power of love.”

“… huh?”

“By love I mean, I mean hearts. And by hearts, I mean drawing little hearts here and then or dropping positive messages where people will find them that say things like, ‘Believe in yourself!’ Or ‘Sharing is caring!’ And ‘I love you!’ Stuff like that. You don’t have to mean it. You don’t have to put on a special act. All you have to do is be subtle, make sure you’re not caught, and watch all the edgelords cringe from finding messages like that in their super dark and edgy murderhobo hideout.”

“They’d probably just laugh at stuff like that.”

“They’d be laughing on the outside. Look, part of trolling is being able to tell how people feel on the inside. You could troll somebody and they might go, ‘haha, you’re not going to get a reaction out of me, I just think you’re pathetic and am laughing. I’m not mad at you at all. Good try.’ But on the inside, they’re raging. They wouldn’t go through that much effort to tell you that they’re totally not mad unless they’re actually mad. Never trust when somebody says they’re not mad. And you know what? Even if they aren’t actually mad, if they can tell you don’t believe them, then there’s a chance that they’ll actually get mad since they’ll know you actually believe they are. People don’t like being doubted when it comes to their emotions. As for the murderhobos, chances are that they’re going to see those messages, laugh about them with each other to try and fit in and look like they don’t care, and then die on the inside because it reminds them of things they’ve probably never experienced or wish that they could.”

“Then isn’t that basically prying on the insecurities of people who you believe are so emotionally damaged that they’re doing all sorts of fucked up stuff in a game to cope with it?”

“Exactly.”

“Doesn’t that make us worse than them? They’re just trying to cope and we’re fucking with them.”

“Then they shouldn’t have fucked with me. Are you forgetting the whole thing about trying to suicide bomb us with a chemical weapon? They lost all sympathy from me as soon as they were stupid enough to try that. Huh. Speaking of chemical weapons… I wonder if there’s a way to develop some sort of gas or drug that makes people super happy and lovey-dovey. Imagine spiking the water there with some sort of chemical that makes everybody act all mushy and clingy with each other. A bunch of edgelords would end up getting into a giant cuddle puddle together.”

“That would actually be pretty funny.”

“Right? I bet a bunch of them have stupid spikes on their armor. They’d probably all stab each other to death just from trying to cuddle.”

“I can confirm a ton of them wear spikes. Like, an excessive amount of spikes.”

“Alright. Cuddling gas has been added to my list of things I want. Anyways, all you’re really going to need to do is spy on them, find a way to report information to me, and—for your own fun—find little ways to troll them with things like positivity, hearts and smiley faces drawn on the walls, and so on.”

“Wait, what do you mean I’ve got to find a way to report info to you? Don’t you have something for me to use?”

“Nope. I figure that there’s still an eighty percent chance or so that you’re just playing along with me right now and are going to either try to betray me or just lose all interest once you respawn back at their base. If you actually end up being friendly and seriously decide to betray them, then I’ll trust you to figure out a way to report information to me to prove how serious you are about this.”

Lazarus sighed and rubbed his forehead. “You’re asking a lot of me now. Also, wait. Trolling isn’t done for a greater reason or anything, right?”

Fenrir gave him a thumbs-up. “Right.”

“But isn’t all of this to get revenge and to stop them from ever messing with you again? Doesn’t that count as a greater reason? If you were doing it just because you wanted to do it then you wouldn’t have waited.”

It was Fenrir’s time to stare blankly ahead as the gears turned in his head for a few moments. “Well… you see, there’s a sliding scale when it comes to things like this.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s not that I’m doing it for a greater reason. It’s just… they caught my attention, so—alright. I’m doing it for a greater reason. I want revenge and I want to put them in their place to show them what real trolling is like. Even if they don’t really view what they’re doing as trolling, they’re nothing but griefers trying to ruin other people’s days. So, I’m going to show them what it’s like to really ruin somebody’s day.”

“You’re a hypocrite. But working with you sounds more fun than working with them, so I don’t care.”

“You really are only in this for whoever is going to make the most fun for you, huh?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s a game. The whole point is to have fun. I’ll be honest, if somebody more fun invites me to work with them and they want me to betray you, I’ll do it.”

“I can respect the honesty. But you should try to be a bit more careful than that.”

“Why bother?”

“Because you never know who you’re going to get on the bad side off. I can promise you that no matter what you do to me in a game, I’m never going to try doxing you or going after you outside of it. But other people—you troll somebody hard enough and they’re never going to let you live it down. They will try everything in their power to get revenge on you. Of course, they’re usually too cowardly to actually try anything in person, but they can still give your name and location out to everybody, call the police on you, maybe even come to your house and cut your power—all of this stuff happens. Maybe not as much as it used to back in the day when it was a massive problem, but it still happens. Though, you probably won’t have to worry about that in FTO thanks to the virtual assistants… and the overseer. But in other games where you don’t have those layers of protection, or if you’re not careful about who you give information to that you meet in this game, then you might be in trouble.”

“Damn. Has that stuff really happened?”

“Yeah. There’s one famous story about a couple of guys in a game we used to play. A massive battle was set to happen that would result in one side claiming a ton of territory while the other got nothing. Somebody from one of the game’s guilds found out who the enemy’s leader was in real life, went to his house, and cut his power. Nobody ever found out who did it, but some people take these things seriously. Honestly, if this was any other game, I’d probably just say screw it and not bother with the End Bringers. But I know they won’t be able to dig anything up on me without going through the overseer, and… she wouldn’t let that happen.”

Fenrir might have had his issues with Kadi, but he had faith in her when it came to the game’s integrity and the safety of its players. Even if her own views were different from his when it came to what exactly was perfectly acceptable to do in the game, he figured she would never let somebody inflict harm in the real world. Not to mention that there were always virtual assistants to prevent players from saying too much information related to the real world, and then there was always the fact that Fenrir knew how to be extremely careful with what information he gave out to people.

“Anyways,” he continued, “we talked before about going after bigger fish for a real challenge and to really make a name for yourself. Now we’ve talked about what it means to really troll somebody. You’re going to be a legend if you pull this off. Heck, betray them and then betray me and you’ll really be a legend. Nobody will ever trust you again, but hey, maybe you’ll get to start up your own group of trolls who all want to take after you.”

“You’re really expecting me to betray you, aren’t you?” Lazarus asked.

“Once a traitor, usually a traitor. All I want is for you to wait to betray me until after we fuck with the End Bringers. Then you can stab me in the back whenever you want and I won’t complain.”

“Betraying you doesn’t even sound like it’d be any fun if you’re expecting it and… wait. You’re purposely making it sound boring so I won’t do it, aren’t you? You just got done talking about how I should do things that are going to get the biggest reaction out of people, and now you’re telling me about how you won’t even have a reaction since you’re expecting it.”

Fenrir winked and shushed him before saying, “I’m not the strongest fighter, the smartest strategist, the funniest comedian, or anything like that… but, as much as I probably shouldn’t feel proud about admitting this, I am really good at manipulating people when I want to. I’ve basically spent half my life screwing with people in games, playing them against each other, ruining their days, researching psychology to maximize my trolling potential—I know how to fuck with people. That’s why I’m going to teach the End Bringers a lesson. And you’re going to come along for how fun of a ride that’s going to be.”

“Why don’t you just talk like that more often? All that other stuff, like talking about the concept of trolling and whatever, is boring. This is how you get me pumped up. Damn, you get me excited when you talk like that.”

“In that case, ready to go back and begin your mission?”

“Yeah. And I’ll figure a way to get in contact with you.”

“Good.”

“So…”

Fenrir took Rod off his hip and transformed him into a sword. “Good luck.”

“Ho-hold on, are you just going to—”

“Yep.”

It was bloody, but it was efficient. Fenrir stabbed his blade through Lazarus’s heart to instantly kill him. No matter how strong Lazarus might have been in the game, no player was going to survive having their heart stabbed through.

Lazarus’s corpse fell to the ground. A day later and he would respawn back at the End Bringer’s base which was where he last slept to set a spawn point.

“You know, Saya,” Fenrir said out loud, swinging Rod to get the blood off before returning him to his hip. “One of the best ways to make somebody think you’re not going to screw them over is to admit to them how manipulative you are. You let them know that and a part of them is going to think, ‘wow, so I must be special, I’m different because he’s telling me about this. He wouldn’t tell me about manipulating people if he planned on manipulating me.’ That might not be exact, but it’s usually close enough to how they think.”

“You’re the worst, onii-wan,” Saya replied.

“Trust me, FTO hasn’t seen me at my worst yet. But I feel like that might happen soon.”

“This whole thing really is bringing out that troll side of yours.”

“Don’t worry. It’s just for these assholes.”

“It better be. It’s hot when you’re like this to assholes, but I’m abandoning you if you ever act like this to somebody innocent who doesn’t deserve it.”

“Don’t worry. I—wait. It’s hot?”

“Beeeeeeeep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeep.”

“You can’t keep pretending to hang up to avoid me!”

“Beep. Beep. Watch me. Beep. Beep.”

“I will find you, and I will lewd you.”

“B-beep…”